For decades, voice-based communication networks have carried analog signals between customer premises equipment (CPE), like telephones, via central office facilities over the public switched telephone network (PSTN). To date, testing of these communication networks has focused on testing the two-wire copper connection between the CPEs and their central offices (i.e., the “loop”), and/or testing the CPEs themselves. For example, Mechanized Loop Testing has been the primary means of measuring line signal levels and losses on the loop. In addition, equipment capable of testing telephones has been developed and is widely used in the field.
Although loop and CPE testing are common, end-to-end testing of the entire communication path from one CPE to another, for example, is limited by the inability to correlate measurements taken at the CPEs. The inability to correlate the measures often is the result of the great distances that frequently separate the CPEs. In particular, a connection from one CPE to another may span various networks and travel through a multitude of switching points. Recent deregulation has divided ownership of these networks and switching points among distinct service providers. Therefore, the inability to coordinate the many efforts necessary to conduct such testing has frustrated such end-to-end testing.
Yet, at the same time network ownership has become more fragmented, customer communication needs have become more global. Consequently, the need for testing the corresponding communication paths also has become more global (i.e., end-to-end) with the advent of the Internet, for example. Moreover, this need has become more prominent by the global transmission of digital signals that are more sensitive to transmission faults than their analog counterparts.
Therefore, there is a need for an end-to-end test solution that permits measurements taken at each end of the network to be properly correlated and analyzed.